Repercussions of Time
by CrazyMich
Summary: Due to a dark and terrible future Ben Skywalker son of Luke and Mara goes back int time to stop his Grandfather's fall into darkness
1. Chapter 1

**I started writing this when I saw the first trailer to Revenge of the Sith. It's complete and a friends suggested I post it here. **

Hatred and anger, they had seized him like a disease, touching upon his every nerve, until he was

ablaze with emotion. It was this that drowned out all else in him. All love, all empathy, was forced out by the power of his dark energy. And that energy needed a conduit for its escape. Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man who had raised him from childhood, who had taught him, and furthered his skills in the Force, was the object of his outlet.

Oppressive heat surrounded them, the air shimmering its palpable essence. Angrily their lightsabers came together, straining against one another. Each man was lost on a wave of emotion that could not be tamed. Anakin reveled in the look of object desperation so conspicuous in his old Master's eyes. This was not the calm Jedi facade that Obi-Wan had drilled into his head from their first moments together. The Jedi Master was gone and in his place stood only a man. Anakin had reduced him to nothing more then a man with a lightsaber.

"Where is your Jedi calm now, Master?" Anakin asked mockingly, watching for the reaction in those red touched azure eyes.

With a burst of strength, Obi-Wan threw Anakin's blade from his own. "Don't speak to me of calm!" His voice was ragged and haggard by the heat that stole moisture from everything around them. "You've betrayed everything I ever taught you. Everything you believed in."

Shaking his head with a feral smile, Anakin replied, "Never. I never believed in your words. You were my tool, my old Master. A means to an end." The pain and hurt that lanced through Obi-Wan's eyes was as addictive as any drug and Anakin yearned for more. "You crafted me at my will. You killed a Sith and you made one."

"No!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. Raising his lightsaber high, he leapt, his blade cutting a vertical swath through the air, aiming straight for Anakin.

The younger man rose his blue blade to meet that one which matched it. Coalesced light, sparked and sizzled as each of them fought for dominance. Anakin batted his old Master's lightsaber away with a swift, one-handed stroke, then brought his free, mechanical hand to Obi-Wan's throat, squeezing the life and breath from the man. Slowly, he lowered Obi-Wan to the ground, the Jedi Master gasping as his lightsaber blade was brought closer and closer to his neck.

At that moment, so close to murder, something paused in Anakin. He wasn't sure exactly what it

was about Obi-Wan's face, composed in a mask of struggle and hopelessness, but his resolve melted. His hesitance in dispatching the man before him, proved how dangerous the weakness still inside of him was.

In a reverse move, Obi-Wan butted the hilt of his lightsaber into Anakin's face, shattering his nose and causing the younger Jedi to backpedal, nearly falling into one of the rivers of molten lava surrounding them.

Gingerly, Anakin brought the fingers of his flesh hand to his nose. When he pulled them away,

blood spotted his fingers. "You'll pay for that old man."

"Is this what Qui-Gon saved you from slavery for? Is this what I trained you to be? A puppet to

Palpatine," Obi-Wan asked between air sucking gasps.

"No, more then either of you thought me to be," Anakin countered. "I am power."

Shaking his head, Obi-Wan argued, "You'll be nothing. A soulless shell." He squinted past the

sweat and the blood. "What would Padme think of that, I wonder?"

"It doesn't matter," Anakin argued, forgetting the blade in his hand.

"It does," Obi-Wan hitched on a cough. "It does matter, Anakin. Because if you continue on this path, there is no turning away from it," Obi-Wan swayed, limping toward his former apprentice. "You're better then that. Fight against Palpatine's cunning words, find the truth in his lies."

_He will act as your friend. He will pretend that you can be saved, but trust me Lord Vader, he is your enemy now,_ Lord Sidious had warned him of Obi-Wan. _Kenobi and the Jedi have used you to their hearts content, pulling you away from the ones you loved. Don't let their cunning words sway you._

"You're a liar," he hissed, with a baleful glare. "You've always lied to me, Obi-Wan. You promised one day I'd see my mother and she'd be proud of what I'd become."

"Do you think she'd be proud of this?" he exclaimed, belligerent.

The cold metal of his lightsaber, despite the heat thrumming around them, suddenly made itself

known and Anakin charged, their battle resuming once again. "You didn't know her. You never

took the time to care."

Obi-Wan could not have answered if he had wanted to, Anakin beat at his lightsaber was his own

sapphire blade. _You are strong, my young apprentice. He will be no match for you._ Palpatine understood the power burgeoning inside of him. Palpatine knew he could do great things with that power. He could control death with it. His and those around him.

"I'll give you one last chance, Anakin," Obi-Wan broke in between strikes and parries. "Turn away from the Dark Side. Don't give in to hate. Come back with me, Padawan."

It was the use of this former endearment, something that Anakin felt himself far away from that

caused him to charge at Obi-Wan. He did not want to feel that spark of goodness, that spark that

would lead to guilt. He had not acted wrong, it was the Jedi that had. Obi-Wan brought his saber up and parried the strike, dodging side ways to come at Anakin from another angle. But the younger man had not calculated his speed and he plunged forward, tumbling towards the precipice.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan cried a warning.

Just when Anakin was sure he was going to pitch over into that destructive river of molten fire,

something intercepted his path. He rebounded off of it like striking a transparasteel wall. He hit

the rock bed and quickly looked up, startled to find a foreign young man standing before him.

He had red-gold hair, long and wavy like Anakin's, eyes the color of the sea, and though he could not have been any older then seventeen, he was battle hardened, and scarred. On either side of his hip blasters sat holstered, plus one strapped to his thigh. A lightsaber dangled from his utility belt, yet he was not dressed in the standard Jedi garb, but was clad in a simple black unisuit.

From behind Anakin he felt Obi-Wan trout cautiously forward. "Who are you?" Both Kenobi and Skywalker momentarily distracted from their heated battle by this new arrival.

The strange young man lifted his arms out and instantly both Anakin and Obi-Wan's lightsabers

sailed through the air, coming to slap in his waiting palms. "My name is Ben..." and the sea colored eyes settled on Obi-Wan before flicking back to Anakin... "Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."


	2. Chapter 2

_**As I stated before I started writing this before Episode III had actually come out. So it is not entirely coherent with it, but a lot of it is. Thanks for reading.**_

**Fifty-seven Years into the Future**

**Fifteen-year-old Ben Skywalker froze as he felt the void in the Force, his eyes widening in sudden fear that was squashed by the need to remain calm and find his father. They had been living on the uncharted moon of Nadoran at the edge of the known galaxy. One of the few areas that the Yuuzhan Vong had not occupied completely and had yet to comb through the citizens looking for slaves to fill the coral-patches. **

**Ben's father, Luke Skywalker, believed that they were the only two Jedi left in the galaxy. The Force was a tranquil pool in which only their signatures disturbed the waves. His father had commented a number of times that it felt very much like his early days as a Jedi, the last of an Order that had once held thousands. **

**Working as farmers, Ben and Luke had been on Nadoran for just short of a season. There had been no need to separate, since the Force was a blight in the sight of the Vong and Ben had been grateful for his father's guiding presence in a frightening world. If it had not been for his father, Ben would have despaired long ago. He could not see a way past this disaster, yet his father clung to hope and was a tether for his son to hold to while the galaxy became a torrent of violence. **

**He burst into their quarters, where he had left his father to rest after a long day in the fields, not**

**surprised to find his father waiting for him. It was physical pain to see how old Luke had become. His father was strong in the Force, but age and war had gnarled away at him, causing him to appear older then his nearly sixty years. Ben knew with a tight twist of his stomach that if the Yuuzhan Vong were to discover them, his father would not survive the battle.**

"**The ship is preped," Luke said by way of greeting, grabbing his son's shoulder and leading him to the small docking port that housed their two man cruiser. **

**Ben nodded, gathering his thoughts, searching his mental star chart for the nearest, and safest,**

**system. "I wasn't able to get the supplies. They shut down the markets."**

"**Customary procedure when the Vong are in atmosphere," Luke assured him, though Ben was well aware of the Yuuzhan Vong's 'procedure'. His mother, Mara, had been swept away and killed in one of their slave hunts. "There'll be enough."**

**That stopped Ben in his tracks, forcing Luke to pause as well. "What are you talking about? We**

**have meager rations for one person let alone two."**

**Luke drew a steadying breath and gazed at his son intently. The younger Skywalker wanted to run away from that gaze. "I'm not going with you," he answered evenly.**

"**But..." and it was like all other capability to speak had been siphoned off, his throat constricting, his breath coming out in irregular gasps. **

"**Ben listen to me. iYou/i have to survive. I don't have the strength left to do what is necessary. iYou/i do," his father explained, grasping Ben's shoulders for emphasis.**

**Ben fought the urge to break away from his father's grip. He couldn't listen to this, he couldn't bear it What would he do without his father? Where would he go? "If this is about the supplies, I'll go into a hibernation trance, you can have the rations."**

"**This is exactly what I mean, Ben," Luke argued. "You will share with me everything you have and it will only spare me for a small time, while costing you. One of us has to survive and it can't be me."**

**Straightening his shoulders, Ben denied, "I can't do it without you."**

"**You must," Luke insisted. **

"**But you'll die," he argued, trying this last avenue. His father must see how young he still was, that his training was incomplete, that he couldn't possibly fulfill the plan that his father was concocting. **

**A fond smile deepened the age furrows in his father's features. "There is no death; only the Force. I will always be with you."**

Ben gazed at the two men before him, each such an important part of his history, each gazing at him as though he'd gone mad. Obi-Wan, the man Ben had been named for, appeared more cautious, gazing at the lightsaber that had inexplicably been taken from him. No doubt wondering how a mere boy had managed to outsmart him. Anakin, his grandfather, blinked at him for several long heartbeats, before spinning towards his former mentor.

"This is some sort of trick. Another deception conceived by the Jedi to control me," Anakin blurted out accusingly towards Kenobi.

An indignant anger fell on Obi-Wan's features, but Ben leapt to answer before a fight between his grandfather and the man who was as good as could begin again. "If you think that, no wonder you turned to the Dark Side," he shot flippantly. It was better if Anakin's anger was turned to him and not the man who had raised him.

With a growl, Anakin launched himself at Ben. In the flutter of an eyelash, Ben ignited the

confiscated weapons and crossed them, inches away from Anakin's neck. He cocked an eyebrow. "I don't believe that would be a wise move, Grandfather." Turning to Kenobi before Anakin could answer, he asked without lowering his weapons. "Do either of you have a ship?"

"Who are you really? What is your purpose here?" Obi-Wan asked, his suspicion and wariness

hardly unreasonable but detrimental to Ben's cause.

"There will be time for explanations later. The longer we delay, the greater chance Palpatine will find us," Ben informed. He made unnecessary calculations to the sabers in his hands, reminding Anakin of his danger. "And I would not make any attempts to contact your new Master through the Force."

"There are no other Skywalkers," Anakin snapped. "You are a charlatan."

Squashing down the urge to just knock Anakin unconscious, Ben said with strained patience, "Reach out to the Force, Anakin. Feel the truth in my words."

Knowing how volatile Anakin was, Ben stilled himself for an attack. But he only felt a tainted

stirring in the Force wash over him, felt a small connection and for a moment, it was like having his father back. Anakin's eyes snapped open. "I don't believe it."

Now restraining tears, Ben forced himself to be stern. "Believe what you will, it is the truth

nonetheless." He shuttered, shaking away the memory of his father. "Obi-Wan a ship? Do we have one?"

"How do _I_ know I can trust you?" Obi-Wan asked.

With a flick of his wrist, Ben deactivated one of the sabers and threw it at Obi-Wan. "Because if I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already."

"I knew it," Anakin gasped. "You're in league with him. I don't know how you changed the Force around you, but I will figure it out."

Ben resigned himself to the inevitable. He switched his grip on the lightsaber, thumbing it off and bringing the hilt of it to the back of his grandfather's head. Anakin crumbled to the ground it lump of fabric and muscle. "I had hoped this would be easier." He whipped at a pool a sweet under his nose and found that it was dotted with blood, quickly he rubbed it against his unisuit.

"Impossible," Obi-Wan muttered thoughtfully, looking between his fallen apprentice and Ben. "Yet your aura's..." he drew off unable to complete his thoughts.

Underneath their feet, the ground quake and Ben was made keenly aware of the precariousness of their situation. "Palpatine would have been monitoring this confrontation closely. I haven't picked up on any invasion into my mind, but that doesn't mean he hasn't sensed my arrival. It took a lot of Force energy to break through the fabrics of time." Leaning over, he hefted his larger grandfather into his arms. "Are you well enough to lead the way?"

Dazed, Obi-Wan nodded his affirmation. "Yes. If you are who you claim to be, then we best be on our way." Searching eyes raked over Anakin and Ben, Obi-Wan wanting to take the load of his fallen apprentice but hesitant to expose himself in such a way again.

"I have him," Ben assured the older Jedi.

Without another word, Obi-Wan started a determined gait towards the ship. It was slackened by the limp he must have sustained from the battle. While he followed, his father's future mentor, Ben reached out to the Force. He had time, it told him. A small amount of time, to fix years of mistakes. Not for the first time he thought it should have been his father to come backward in time, to stop the two men who had been an influence in his life. But it was Ben who had been dropped into the middle of foreign ground, expected by the Force to hasten the balance so that when the Vong infiltrated the galaxy, the Jedi would be ready for them. Where there had been a scant hundred, there would be thousands.

Of course, his plans consisted of turning his grandfather back to the good side and encouraging

Anakin to destroy Palpatine now, instead of twenty years in the future. A daunting task that had not diminished by his miraculous time-travel. It was made all the more difficult with the realization that he would have to convince whatever Jedi remained that if they did not change their present the repercussions of time would be dire. Not to mention they would all have to believe that he had come back through time fifty-nine years.

The ship Obi-Wan lead him to was kept in obvious care, despite the charred spots where the heat of this Force-forsaken world had burnished it. It was of a line and design that Ben was not familiar with, yet it's graceful curves and sculpted scope gave him reason to instantly admire it. He caught Obi-Wan watching him, but not in that same piercing manner he'd exhibited since Ben's arrival. There was something longing in his gaze, an opaque nostalgia.

"Anything that flies," Obi-Wan said in a hushed, pain-laced, tone before turning his attention to the keypad and initiating the loading ramp.

Ben didn't care to comment, putting together the older Jedi's meaning. Instead he followed Kenobi up the ramp and waited for the ramp to close before asking, "Is there somewhere secure to hold him?"

"Yes, this way."

It was a small cell, adequate enough for a ship of this size. "Not everyone believed I could bring him back to the light. Master Yoda insisted I bring this ship. I guess he was right to think Anakin would only be brought in as a prisoner."

That gave Ben pause. Had the aged Jedi Master known of his arrival? If so was this venture doomed before it even begun? Could he really change what would be? He had survived for the last two years with the hope that it could be done. Now he worried that his and his father's efforts had been all in vain.

He dropped Anakin to the small bunk and quietly stepped out of the cell. "There is still hope," he said, as much to himself as to Kenobi. "Where will we go now?"

"I guess I was waiting for you to tell me," Obi-Wan answered wryly. "To Master Yoda I suppose."

"On Dagobah?" Ben asked.

Surprised again flickered over those bearded features. "How did you...," he stopped, catching

himself in discovery. "Yes. He's on Dagobah." Azure eyes focused on him. "You really are his grandson aren't you?"

"I will be."


	3. Chapter 3

The vastness of space often held a sort of solace for Obi-Wan Kenobi. He would never have gone as far as to say that it offered answers to the most complex questions of his life, but he had found direction amongst the myriad of twinkling lights. But gazing out beyond the forward viewport, into the star pricked velvet back drop did little to allay the static building inside of him, threatening to be released with a violent explosion. If the young man sitting next to him hadn't been there, he would have long since vented what boiled inside of him.

He prohibited his mind from all thoughts of the Sith Lord, his former apprentice, who he had imprisoned in the stern of the ship. Allowing that would only increase the synergy of emotion roiling inside of him and the temptation to let loose was already nearly overwhelming. Instead he focused on their strange arrival, who had ended the gruesome battle between he and Anakin. He did not want to think what would have happened had Ben not stopped Anakin.

As soon as he linked with the hyperspace ring and set the coordinates for a several jump retreat to Master Yoda, Obi-Wan turned to the teenage boy. "Explain," he ordered shortly.

"Not one for circling your landing, I like that," Ben said a wry tone to his voice. "As for an explanation I'm not sure where to begin. I'm from fifty-nine years into the future. My father was named Luke Skywalker, the son of Anakin Skywalker and twin to Leia Organa."

"Organa?" Obi-Wan asked, thinking of his friend Bail.

"A divergence on the story that we'll come to later," Ben answered.

"But it is Bail Organa?" Obi-Wan insisted.

The young boy eyed him intensely. "It is. You trusted him." He shook his head, the man of red-gold locks furrowing with the motion. "You trust him. Anyway, in the battle I interrupted, Anakin originally did fall into that lava bed. From what my father told me you believed him dead, but he crawled his way out and Palpatine restored what little of him was left. He became a hybrid of man and machine."

Obi-Wan hissed in a painful breath and held it tight. This had to be a lie. He couldn't have caused such damage to Anakin. This young man was what his former apprentice had professed, nothing more then a clever deceiver who knew how to infiltrate his way into someone's trust. Anakin would have come back on his own accord, he would have realized his mistake and let Obi-Wan guide him. That was the only truth he could accept. Not what this boy was spouting as though reciting a history lesson.

"I know this must be painful for you," Ben said not without feeling.

"How is it not for you? If you are truly who you claim to be," Obi-Wan accused, that torrent inside of him rising on his words.

"I never knew him!" Ben snapped. "I never knew you or a lot of my family because they were murdered, destroyed because you two were fools. Because Palpatine wasn't discovered and the Jedi were destroyed. Now I'm trying to keep my personal problems with you and Anakin and the rest of your Order out of this, but if you want to go down that spacelane, by all means please continue." Ben rocketed out of the co-pilot chair. "Look, I didn't want to come here, but my father...I was the only one left."

The instant, angry retort died on Obi-Wan's lips as he saw the heartbreak on the young boy's features. "I'm sorry. How did your father die?"

"It's not important," the young Jedi said, steel framing his every features, his every muscle. "Here is where my history gets sketchy. You and Master Yoda split Dad and Aunt Leia. You take Dad to Tatooine to Owen and Beru Lars, we never knew why and Aunt Leia was raised by Bail Organa. The

long and short of it is, that when my father was twenty years old, you felt compelled to start him on his journey as a Jedi."

Obi-Wan's mouth dropped, literally. "Twenty? What in the Force's name was I thinking?"

"Whatever you were thinking, it proved to be useful. However, you were unable to continue his training, you were killed saving him, Leia, and a smuggler named Han Solo," Ben continued his narrative.

"Now I'm consorting with smugglers, this tale continues to get more intriguing," Obi-Wan said, forcing levity in the wake of his foretold death.

A small smile, the first Obi-Wan remembered seeing on the young features pulled Ben's face and it instantly reminded him of a younger Anakin, constricting his heart with both pain and fond nostalgia. "Eventually, you appear to him as a ghost and tell him to go to Yoda on Dagobah. Hiss

training was short but eventually he went to face his father, Lord Vader"

Obi-Wan found himself holding his breath once again. The future had been changed by Ben's arrival or at least so the boy asserted, but he needed to know that all had or will have worked out fine.

"He brought him back to the good side and Vader once again became Anakin, keeping Palpatine from killing his son," Ben quickly answered, as if sensing Obi-Wan's trepidation.

"So the prophecy was true, he did or will or would have brought balance," Obi-Wan said, glancing back to the hidden cell where Anakin lay unconscious. "I couldn't bring that out of him." Incredibly acute, Ben remained silent. "But if Palpatine was destroyed, why the need to change the past?"

"It wasn't soon enough," Ben answered matter-of-fact. "The Yuuzhan Vong invaded our galaxy two years before I was born, a complete void in the Force, and overwhelming to my father's budding Jedi Order. I joined the war when I was fourteen but my efforts were certainly not going to change the sway. Not then."

The boy heaved a great breath, a weight that should have tumbled those sturdy shoulders weighed on him. "Many were sacrificed out right to the Vong's gods, others were implanted with mind-control spoors. Either way, we were whipped out. I'm the last of the Jedi in my time, Obi-Wan."

The Jedi Master shook his head. "But you can't possibly be fully trained." The boy's strength in the Force was not as great as Anakin's, but the way he controlled it, the way he had it wrapped around him like a heavy cloak was far more advanced then Anakin's ability. This fantastic story laid before him, was only amplified by Ben's presence. iHe had/i seemed to come out of nowhere.

"No, I would still call myself an apprentice. My training was cut short when...at fifteen. I've had to go it alone the last two years," Ben explained somewhat bashfully and it was the first time that Obi-Wan looked beyond the battle scars and practiced indifference and saw the young man before him.

There was no doubt in his mind that Ben's father had been instructing him in the ways of the Force and that the untimely cessation had been caused when Luke Skywalker had died. Yet, however ill-trained, Ben had traveled back in time fifty-nine years. It was staggering to think, he could not

imagine what it had been like to experience. At seventeen, Ben had stopped the Chosen One, who would become his grandfather.

"You realize that the changes you hope to make might preclude your own birth," Obi-Wan felt he had to be truthful with this young man who had been nothing but to him.

A solemn nod met his statement. "I know, but what else can be done."

Admiring the fortitude in one so young, Obi-Wan nodded. "It's these Yuuzhan Vong you mentioned, that worry me. I can't believe an entire race would be blanketed from the Force. The Force resides in all of us, in each cell. It surrounds us, penetrates us,.."

"And binds the galaxy together," Ben finished for him. "I've heard it before. But if what connects us to the Force is in the Yuuzhan Vong we can't sense it and they deny any connection to it. They are an aberration of life; revering everything that is natural but destroying it with as much zeal. As

warriors, the Jedi were admired but were thought only to be a worthy sacrifice to the gods in hope of securing a further hold on the galaxy."

"So you hope to change everything by simply bringing Anakin to the light two decades early," Obi-Wan ventured.

Ben chuckled wryly, with far too much bitterness for a child his age. "Hardly. I intend on shaking up much about this time and your Order."

"Pardon me?" Obi-Wan questioned, frowning. It was nearly laughable the turn his life had taken in these last few hours. He had learned that he had both doomed and forsaken Anakin, only to be indirectly responsible for his salvation. Then all those efforts had been wasted only a number of

decades later because extragalactic travelers, absent in the Force, had sought dominance. All culminating into a seventeen-year-old apprentice traveling fifty-nine years into the past to fix the wrongs of his grandfather and the body of family and friends surrounding him.

The ludicrousness of it all hit Obi-Wan in a rush of splattering laughter that was only propelled by the simmering energy inside of him. "I'm dreaming," he ventured to himself. "It must be that. I'll wake up and Anakin will be nine-years-old again and this is just one of my nightmares."

"And how do you explain me?" Ben asked folding his arms before him, an impatience radiating so strongly from him that Obi-Wan suspected him to tap his feet. "Indigestion?" Ben approached him until he was inches away from Obi-Wan, gazing up at the Jedi Master with a silent plea. "You have

to put it together, because I certainly can't do this on my own. If not, you're no use to me. Might as well go to Tatooine and live out your life as a lonely hermit. But if you really care about Anakin, if you care what happens to this galaxy and the people inside of it, then you'll help me?"

"Yes, of course." Obi-Wan pressed a hand to his forehead, temporarily holding back his spinning thoughts. To loose his head now would only make matters worse for them all. Ben was fighting hard to be brave, but he could see that the boy was frightened, tired, and needed the guidance of good

Master. "Forgive me."

Accepting with the barest of nods, Ben asked, "What's our next move?"

"I think it best we let Anakin alone until we reach Master Yoda," Obi-Wan answered. At present, Obi-Wan wasn't sure what he would say or do if he were to come face to face with Anakin. He could divert from his feelings for awhile, but he knew eventually they'd catch up to him. He could run a little farther before he fell exhausted.

"And he's not likely to accept who I am for a long while," Ben answered. "So we wait."

"You should get some rest," Obi-Wan suggested gently, though he feared to be alone with his thoughts.

That sardonic look, a constant companion for the young apprentice, fell on Ben's features. "I didn't just fight a battle."

"No, you used the Force to take you back in time," Obi-Wan countered with as much sarcasm.

Suddenly, Ben found the elongated starlines of hyperspace hypnotic. "Before my father died and we were skirting from one side of the galaxy to the other, evading the Vong, he would tell me of my mother, my aunt, uncle, and cousins, of you and my grandfather." Pain. That was something the

three beings on the ship shared, each shaping them and moving them in different directions. Obi-Wan vowed to help Ben through his. "We couldn't risk sleeping, not for an extended period of time and the stories helped keep us awake."

He flicked those oceanic eyes towards Obi-Wan. "Companionship, kept us alive. Made the hard years bearable, especially after mom died. You have to have things to cling on to, an attachment to keep you anchored when the tide rises too high. Do you know what I mean, Obi-Wan?"

What Ben spoke of was forbidden by the Jedi code, yet in the aftermath of near destruction, Obi-Wan could not fault his beliefs. If he had allowed Anakin to become attached to him, had become the anchor for him as Luke had been for Ben, then perhaps their fateful battle would never had to occur.

"No," he admitted softly . "But I think I'm beginning to." He offered a sly smile. "Tell me one of your father's tales, young Ben. Tell me what might have been."


	4. Chapter 4

_He's here!_ Ben's mind announced, as they pulled out of lightspeed.

The violet atmosphere of Dagobah was barely visible from this point, but the young Jedi knew full well the electric charge that brewed inside atmosphere. He and his father had hidden a small time on the planet, furthering Ben's training before they had decided to hunt for the Jedi. What startled Ben was a streamline cruiser, of obvious rich construction that followed Dagobah's rotation.

Terrified heartbeats past and his hand drifted to the hilt of his mother's lightsaber, before he realized that the cruiser was not moving to intercept and had not sighted them as soon as they had exited hyperspace.

Obi-Wan must have read his discomfort because he rested a hand on his shoulder, in a startling likeness to the way his father had. "It is Bail. No need to worry."

"Who's worried?" Ben said with forced cheerfulness, making a concerted effort to release his anxiety. This wasn't his time. A foreign ship did not necessarily mean that the government had betrayed them and he would be handed over to the Yuuzhan Vong as he and a number of his fellow

Jedi had before. There were no Vong. _But that doesn't mean you aren't in a dangerous situation. Everything hinges on you, Skywalker. Stop jumping at shadows._

"No one is hunting you here, they're hunting me," Obi-Wan said, his mouth twisting with an air of self-derision.

Ben shook his head, gazing at the cruiser before him. "I've jumped from one bad situation to the other. The Jedi hunted down. Why did my fa..." he stopped short, unable to relay his fears, not even to himself. "But our situation couldn't change. You and Anakin and Master Yoda, and whatever

number of Jedi Knights are spread throughout the galaxy; you still have time to alter the future. This can be fixed, because it has been fixed before." Tentatively, he cocked a smile. "Or would have been."

"What aren't you telling me young Ben?" the older Jedi asked him, gauging him with his azure his. "You willingly render my future as it might have been, but reveal so little of yourself."

"There is little necessity in you knowing my past," Ben answered equitably.

"If we are to work together then we must trust each other," Obi-Wan pointed out.

His entire life Ben had lived in the midst of war, had experienced little respite's in that continual scavenge for peace with the Yuuzhan Vong, had watched, sometimes helplessly, as members of his family, friends both young and old, were slaughtered. His own mother, killed on the cusp of salvation, his father sacrificing himself so that Ben could live long enough to cross the barriers of time. There was no happy ending for him, there was just the hope for a better future for those he had lost. How could he explain this to someone who had not experience that utter desolation?

Swallowing, he shrugged. "You're a good man, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I had no doubt in that. But there are areas inside of me that no person, sometimes not even myself, can tread. The only thing I need to trust you to do, is make right what was to be wrong."

Kenobi shut his eyes and Ben could feel the older man gathering his thoughts, arranging his emotions. For someone who wanted Ben to be so open, Obi-Wan was locked tighter then a pressure seal. "I don't know how much help I'll be. Perhaps Anakin has strayed too far from my reach."

"Then it's my job to breach the distance," Ben chirped in. "Which means, I'll tell Anakin we've arrived."

"And I'll contact Bail."

"We've arrived," Ben told the young man who was a handful of years older then himself, the man who would become his grandfather.

An energy wall separated the two Skywalkers, the past and the future, from one another. Ben did not miss the analogy in that. He had already broken the barriers of time, but he had the feeling that breaking the barrier between his grandfather and himself, plus the one between Anakin and Obi-Wan was going to be a difficulty that he had never truly appreciated. How had his father approached it with as much unfailing faith as he had.

"You won't be able to hold me forever," Anakin hissed at him, the crimson energy wall, emphasizing the apparent anger in his young grandfather. "My Master will not be forgiving, but if you help me escape, their could be a place for you in the Empire."

Ben feigned eager earnestness. "Then why don't I just help you hijack the ship, take Obi-Wan captive, and cart the three of us before Palpatine.?" Solemnity took over Ben's boyish scarred features. "And how long before your Emperor finds the two of us a threat?" Now playing a considering look, Ben added, "But you are the one who is held captive, he'll probably choose me. Though from your perspective this might seem like a terrible idea, now."

"He would not push me aside. I am the Chosen One." Pride puffed the taller man before him and Ben had to hold on to his calm. He could feel the power radiating from Anakin, but it was like throwing a slab of permecrete; easy to dodge if skilled enough but perfectly able to flatten you like

a hotcake.

"Unless you were chosen to get captured you're failing pretty badly," Ben pointed out unforgivingly.

He saw Anakin tense as though ready to pounce. "You've tempted fate, coming here."

"So you've accepted the truth, that I will be your grandson?" Scepticism had become a palpable essence, a friend of sorts, in the last two lonely years. "That my father will be your son."

Considering, Anakin answered, "You are a part of me, but distorted. A distant relative no doubt. But my grandson? I can't believe that you've come back through time."

Ben snatched the lightsaber from inside his tunic, the one he had taken from Anakin. "See this?"

"My lightsaber," Anakin identified.

With a nod, Ben then removed the lightsaber hanging from his belt. "How about this one?" Through the crimson haze, his grandfather squinted at the hilt. After a moment his eyes widened and flicked to his lightsaber yet again. "No two Jedi's lightsabers are alike. Now I could have pulled parts from the ship and have made a passable lightsaber, but what are the odds that it would turn out identical to your own."

"Who are you really?" asked the older Skywalker, still struggling against his disbelief.

"A ghost," Ben said. "A specter now because my future will change. You would have survived that battle, Anakin, but something intrinsic inside of you would have been lost. The Jedi would be hunted and brought to near extinction by you. Obi-Wan, Yoda, and your two twin children the only

ones to survive."

Ben waved the two identical lightsabers, one his grandfather's present, one Ben's future. "Obi-Wan took your lightsaber from that battle and gave it to my father. Dad eventually gave it to my mother when he began her training. After she died, it was passed on to me."

"Were you there?" Anakin asked, the subject leaping course.

"Was I where?" asked the confused teenager.

Those ice-colored eyes, that had held nothing but all-encompassing hatred and anger, dimmed to an old pain and sadness and lowered to the ground. "Were you there when your mother died?"

Shaken by the question, Ben had to quash the instant memory that rose to his mind's eye. He did not want to relive that moment, when he had to center on his efforts to change the future. "It's not important."

"You want me to believe you, answer the question," Anakin commanded.

Narrowing his eyes into a glare, Ben answered, "I was! But I don't see how that will convince you of the truth you already know as fact." He pocketed Anakin's lightsaber and replaced his own. "We'll be landing soon. Now we can transfer you easily, without having to render you unconscious or we can do it the difficult way, with you enjoying another lump on the back of your head. Know that if you try to return to Palpatine I will kill you."

With his words, the softness in Anakin's features reverted to that sharp anger. "How very Jedi of you?"

"Yeah, if I were a Sith, you'd already be dead."

Padme had just finished feeding Leia and resting her next to Luke, when Bail knocked at her door. Weary as she was, she was glad for his presence. He had been a staunch supporter even before the entire galaxy began to fall apart around them, a distraction to keep her mind off of Anakin and Obi-

Wan and her desire for the Jedi Master to bring her husband back to what he had been.

However, his measured expression caused her heart to beat rapidly in her chest. She knew the game face of a politician, had worn it often enough, to recognize that Bail had not come with good tidings. "What is it Bail?" she asked, a thousand 'what if's' swimming in her head.

"Perhaps we should sit," he said, his dark eyes troubled and kind.

She liked this even less, but obliged, leading him to the small bank of cushions that lent itself as a sofa. Together they sat and Bail pressed his hands together in front of him, leaning forward, avoiding her glance. "Obi-Wan and Anakin have returned Padme." He stopped her as she made to

go to them. "There's more."

Slowly she relaxed back against the cushion. "He's a prisoner isn't he?"

Bail nodded, running a hand through his jet hair. "For the moment."

"Does he know about Luke and Leia?" she asked, hurtling past her grief.

"I don't believe Obi-Wan has told him," Bail answered simply. "They're moving him now, but I'll escort you to meet with Master Yoda and Obi-Wan if you'd like."

Gratitude caused tears to well up in Padme's eyes. "Thank you, Bail," she said, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. "Will I be allowed to see him?"

"That will be up to the Jedi, though Padme, I wouldn't recommend it," Bail said with some hostility. He had been supportive of her but he did not want her to be exposed to her husbands evil. Anakin had already damaged so many lives, as a friend Bail did not want to see that happen to her or her

children.

She sighed. "He is still my husband, Bail."

"That can change, Padme. Not many knew of your marriage you could have it annulled," Bail explained. "Find someone else to entrust your happiness to."

"Someone like you?" she asked bitterly.

He scowled at her. "I'm married for Force-sake, Padme."

"I love him, Bail," she admitted, feeling in some small way that she was betraying the Republic, the Jedi, her very people for such an admission.

"Even if he isn't the same man you married?" he asked gently.

She buried her head into her hands, if only she could blind herself to the consequences to the actions around her. There had been something inherently dangerous about loving, Anakin. She had known it then, that night he had professed his love and she had felt her own burgeoning inside of her, but she had so hoped to be able to block the night from him. A fairy tale, she had hoped for. Where the brave Queen kept the favor of a good Knight. She had believed too much in that fairy tale.

"I don't know."

Silence permeated the room around them, even Luke and Leia were quiet in their bassinet. She should have seen what was happening to Anakin, should have seen it before their marriage when he'd tried to save his mother and ended up slaughtering an entire tribe of Tuskins. Except part of her hadn't been able to deny his righteous anger. They had stolen something so precious from him that day and it hadn't just been his mother. He had become very much like them in that moment, holding the power of life and death in his hands. And she had missed it entirely.

"The Jedi will be waiting," Bail reminded, breaking the silence quietly, yet it reverberated in the room as echoing as a thunderclap. He cocked his arm, planting his fist at his hip, offering again his stalwart support.

Standing, she looped her arm through his.

"M'lady," Obi-Wan greeted her, kissing each of her cheeks. Padme instantly noticed his weariness, the bruises that were just beginning to fade under beard, mustache and firm skin.

Bail had lead her into a small conference room, one he used as his diplomatic headquarters during the war. Master Yoda stood a small distance away and it wasn't until Obi-Wan's stance moved away that she saw the teenaged boy with red-gold hair and ocean eyes standing behind the Jedi Master.

She stiffened and shot a questioning look to Obi-Wan. "Oh, pardon me, Padme," Obi-Wan stumbled over his words awkwardly, looking at the boy behind him. "This is Ben..." he trailed off.

Shooting the older man a wry grin, Ben bowed before her. "Jade. Ben Jade. I'm afraid I was left rather stranded and Master Kenobi offered his assistance."

"Ben this is Padme Skywalker, the wife of the man I told you about," Obi-Wan introduced her, his demeanor much repaired.

The boy's eyes turned to credit chits briefly, before he nodded. "Then I offer you my sympathies," he said a sense of sadness and wry amusement in his tone.

Frowning curiously at him, Obi-Wan quickly diverted her attention. "How are the twins?"

"Sleeping," she answered, eternally confused. "What of Anakin?"

"Twins?" Ben Jade asked, his eyes suddenly centering on her belly. "They're already here?"

Obi-Wan faced him. "I thought you knew."

Jade shook his mane of red-gold locks. "I didn't know when. Padme may I see them?"

Reluctantly, his grandmother brought him to her cabin where he could sense the two familiar yet oddly different auras of his father and aunt. It was dark in the room, but Ben was not afraid of a little darkness, it had been his constant companion for the last two years. And it was only a nuisance to the pair of bright lights that were the presence of the two babes at the end of the room. They called to him, tugging on his slow approach.

Padme followed closely behind him, started and more then a little concerned that he had made such a request. He could not explain it to her now though, not when for the first time he knew what it was to have a grandmother, someone soft and caring, even when she didn't know who he was.

Coming to the bassinet, he peered over the edge and his breath hitched in his lungs. _I didn't expect this,_ he mused, as his hand reached out to the little baby boy reposed in sleep. He rested his finger in the tiny hand and felt the grip, the instant connection between father and son. Sith kill

him, his chin trembled at that moment and he the years of being hard and surviving for his father made him wish he could cry at that moment.

"Dad?" he whispered.

This wasn't his father, not yet. But the tiny babe still responded, he felt a tiny waft of the Force, tentative and wild reach out to his mind. Still he could not allow the tears to come. The Yuuzhan Vong had made sure that his grief was poison. _I love you,_ he sent out along their tiny connection. Now his shoulders shook with restrained sobs and he momentarily forgot about his future grandmother behind him.

"This isn't fair," he hissed. Was his mother somewhere out there now? If he reached out far enough would he feel her presence too? So close and yet forever away.

"What was that, Ben?" Padme asked, her voice now full of compassion. Was that where his father had gotten it? That unfailing belief in doing the right thing. Ben felt he was very much bereft of that compassion.

He cleared his throat, pushing his grief away. "It isn't fair that you must hide you and your children, Lady Skywalker."

"Life is rarely fair," Padme ventured, her hand coming up to touch his scarred cheek. "There is something familiar about you Ben Jade. Have we met?"

Without thought, he leaned into her touch. "No," he answered shortly.

Padme was nothing like his mother. There was a smooth regalness to her, a dignity that Mara had held, but his mother had been as hard as he was. She had lived a difficult life and had suffered because of it. Yet he had always known the amount of love she'd carried for him. The ex-Emperor's hand hadn't been soft, she had been softened. But Ben had loved her more then anything. And he had known how much his father had loved her. How he missed them both?

"You must have been in the hardest parts of the war," she said, her fingers now playing over the red, scare-lines, on his face.

"Sometimes, I feel, I never left it."


	5. Chapter 5

_Who are you boy?_ the insidious voice snaked it's way into his mind, causing Ben to nearly buckle under the pressure of it.

It was nearly a physical effort to throw off that weight. _Wouldn't you like to know?_ he sent back, infusing his mental-voice with a cocksureness that he did not feel. He was still reeling from seeing his father and aunt as newborns, now he had to have a mental toe to toe with the man who had worked hard to destroy his parents' lives.

Padme stopped next to him, avidly watching his face, not knowing the internal battle he was waging. "Ben?"

He ignored her question and blanketed all thoughts of their location from his mind. It made sense that he would be able to hear the call of the Emperor, his mother had been able to hear his voice from anywhere in the galaxy. But he didn't know the extent of the Emperor's control. It made him wish he could go forward enough and ask his mother what it had been like to be the Emperor's Hand. But had his interference already voided the Emperor's influence on his mother.

_You are strong, young one. There is no need to be my enemy,_ came the silky reply.

Mental laughter rang through Ben's mind and out towards the Emperor. _First Anakin, now you. What do I have to do, put up a holosign over my head? I'm not going to be your convert._ He started to pull the Force around him, weaving it in a lattice of protection.

_Ah, and advanced I see,_ came the lurid reply. _Strange that the Jedi Masters would teach one so young so quickly._

_Perhaps they realized they had scum like you growing in their backyard,_ Ben replied, hoping that he had gotten the Emperor appropriately riled.

A chilling laugh, shivered through his mind. _You plot against me, young one?_ There was no missing the dubious nature of his tone. _You seek to succeed where many have failed. Such pride is unbecoming a Jedi Knight._

Ben would not rise to the Emperor's bait. He had been pushed beyond petty jibes during the Yuuzhan Vong war. _I'd like to call it an optimistic view on life._ The Emperor pressed heavier on his mind, hoping to break through his barriers. Ben ground his teeth together as he strained against the pressure. _No peeking,_ he sent out, then let go of the Force and let the Yuuzhan Vong poison running through his body take hold, making him a void in the Force.

It was as though someone had been holding him up and had abruptly let go. He staggered, crashing to his knees but managed to keep himself from further embarrassment, catching himself on one hand. Blood trickled down his nose and he used his free hand to whip it away. "Well, that wasn't fun."

"What happened?" Padme asked, helping him rise.

"Palpatine," he said tersely. "Where's Yoda and Obi-Wan?"

If she was scandalized by his informal address of two Jedi Masters, she didn't show it. She was too confused to. "In a conference with Bail. What would the Emperor want with you?" Her dark eyes burned into his own. "I promise you if you are some harm to my children or my husband, I'll kill you myself."

Maybe there was a little more of his mother in Padme then he initial believed. Closing his eyes, he gathered the Force back around him, pushed away the poison from his system. "There is no telling you how much I would do to ensure your children's safety Padme. But you are right, I'm keeping something from you. I wish I could tell you, but I can't." She wouldn't be able to sense the truth in him. "Know that Obi-Wan knows my secret and he trusts me."

"I'm sorry," she whispered and he could hear the strain of her present situation.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," he assured her, pulling gently away from her steady grip. He couldn't show his weakness, not when he had to guide everyone away from the future that would destroy them all. "I'm fine now thank you."

* * *

Sitting in his cell, Anakin fumed. It wasn't the infusing heat he'd felt during his battle with Obi-Wan but a slow brewing one. Confusion fueled his anger, giving it, a tedious burn. Ben had provided evidence that was irrefutable. Those lightsabers had been identical, from his very obvious craftsmanship, to the dents and dings he had picked up along the way. There was also no denying that if Ben hadn't intercepted his head-long run, he would have fallen into that river of lava. 

Yet he struggled to admit the truth. Looking into the mirror of his cell, he tried to imagine himself with red hair and features dimmed by genetics. He was nearly two handspans taller then Ben, but Padme was diminutive. The red hair must have come from his son's wife, for neither Skywalker or Naberrie family carried such a distinct color.

Even if the young man was who he claimed to be, did it make any difference? Palpatine had shown him a power, a power over everything that he had once feared. The Jedi feared the dark side and especially the Sith, now he was fear. Would that change suddenly because he had found someone very much like himself?

If Ben really had come back through time it would have meant an extreme power and control in the Force. Something that not even his Sith Master would have contemplated. He had certainly stolen the saber out of his hand without so much of a bat of an eye. As the Chosen One, he should have been able to sense the strike Ben had used against him.

It was this mystery, more then any fear of actually being stopped, that had kept him from escaping. He had gotten the feeling from a brief communication with his Master that Palpatine wanted him to stay amongst the Jedi. Learning more about Ben would only help the Emperor sway the boy to the dark side.

Patience had never been one of his strong characteristics, but he would exercise it now. He would wait for the Jedi to come to him, pretend contrition, and work with whatever plan the Jedi and Ben were concocting. Palpatine had taught him enough to cloak his true intent. After all, the Emperor had been doing it for decades.

All he would have to do is prey on their hopes.

* * *

Obi-Wan heaved a sigh as Bail exited the conference room and dropped into one of the comfortable chairs lining the conference room. Master Yoda stood at the other end of the table, hunched over on his gimmer stick, looking as warn and tired as Obi-Wan felt. There was so much to be done, but all his energy had been sucked from him. Qui-Gon had been two decades older then Obi-Wan when he'd been killed, but it had seemed his old Master had an everlasting fountain of energy. 

"Speak about young Jade we must," Yoda mewlled into his thoughts.

Yes, there was much to speak about Ben. There was an incredibly large debt he owed the boy; first for stopping Anakin's near fatal plummet, second for managing to stop that heart-wrenching battle. He had recovered a great deal physically from that battle, but mentally...he could not get past what Anakin had become. He was meant to help Ben bring Anakin back to the light, yet his own anger flared so easily when he thought of what his former apprentice had participated in. Beyond his superficial anger there was a deeper one, at himself, for not seeing Anakin's downfall before, for not preparing his boy for his destiny.

Then there was Ben himself. There was no doubt in Obi-Wan's mind the amount of suffering the young Jedi had been through. Had Ben come to deal with that pain or had he just pushed it aside for what must be done.

Obi-Wan had lost Anakin because the Clone Wars had forced him to push aside his apprentice for what had to be done. Betrayal had warred so readily against his own self-derision and anger. He had been caught between two evils; neglecting the threat against the galaxy and neglecting Anakin. As usual he had taken the path of the unifying then the individual. Had he learned nothing from Qui-Gon?

Of course, during the wars, he had felt he had all the time necessary to help Anakin bring balance. All he had to do was hurtle the one obstacle of a full-scale war and he could be free for his former apprentice. Strange how retrospect changes the path of time.

"Be here, he should not," Yoda broke into his reverie once again.

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by Ben marching unyielding into the room. "We need to talk," he announced and plopped into one of the conference chairs. Obi-Wan mused briefly that Qui-Gon would have liked Ben Skywalker's obvious ignorance to authority. "I received a little mental visit from Emperor Palpatine."

"Sense your arrival, we did," Yoda affirmed.

"So you know who I am?" Ben asked, eyes wide with wonder. Master Yoda bobbed his head, his heavy eyes watching the apprentice thoughtfully. "Stars and skies, I thought I was going to have to consent to a blood test. I appreciate you not forcing your mind into mine, though even if you had I don't think it would have been as bracing as Palpatine's visit."

Obi-Wan frowned. "Why is that?"

"My mother. Part of the history I had to skip in my rehearsal to you. Palpatine took her from her family when she was a small child, gave her a remedial knowledge of the Force, and trained her as an assassin. There were others, but I believe she was the most effective because she could hear the Emperor's voice from anywhere in the galaxy. A trait, I've apparently inherited," Ben elucidated. "Which complicates things."

Yoda hobbled closer to Ben, his stick clanging against the wood of the conference table with a staccato beat. "Reveal our location, did you?"

At Ben's age, Obi-Wan would have balked at such a sharp tone coming from the wizened Jedi Master, but Ben just shook his head unfazed. "No, I used a technique I'm aware of that disconnects me from the Force. It put me out of Palpatine's reach." For a moment fatigue weighed on the young scarred features before Ben forced determination on his face. "I don't know how long my mental shields will keep him out. He imprinted a command into my mother's mind before he died and that clung to her for five years before she killed my father's clone."

Obi-Wan exchanged a glance with Yoda, but whatever the aged Jedi Master was thinking could not be deciphered in his large green eyes. Ben was a compilation of absent years. What would happen when Ben did change the future? It was a question Obi-Wan felt he could not ignore. The boy could very well erase his very existence. And then weren't they all back in the same impossible, doomed situation.

"Precarious our situation is, help this your technique would," Yoda mused. "Though incomplete is your training."

Ben frowned. "My training is no longer an importance. It is Anakin we must focus on."

"No!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. When both Yoda and Ben turned to him questioningly, he swallowed. Such outbursts were so uncharacteristic of him. Perhaps Ben had already instigated the changes in him that he had mentioned. "It is a danger to leave an apprentice untrained."

"I will not waste valuable time," Ben interjected heatedly, showing a flash of unexpected anger.

Obi-Wan, however, was not about to back down from this. He felt very strongly that Ben's training should not slacken. "I do not see it as a waste."

"Understand not Master Obi-Wan does, Young Skywalker. Revealed your secret should be,"

Yoda admonished the youth gently.

Impatience tinged Obi-Wan's answers. "I know he's from the future Master Yoda."

Ben shook his head, locking gazes with Yoda for an inexorable time. "It's not that Obi-Wan," the boy admitted finally. He took a shuddering breath and released it in a slow hiss. "I'm dying."

Breath rushed out of Obi-Wan and he blinked at Ben. "You're dying?"

Stoically, Ben nodded. "I was poisoned by the Yuuzhan Vong a month before I made the journey here. A venom that they must have been breeding to use against those Force-sensitives who they could identify early and prohibit from ever becoming Jedi. I fought my way out of a sticky situation but was poisoned. When the Force began to show me visions of the past, I realized what I had to do. To be able to come back through time, it had to be sure that I would not remain in this time."

Obi-Wan's mouth went dry. He had only known Ben Skywalker for the space of a few days, but he had brought him a hope for Anakin that he had despaired of before. There was also enough of his old Master and his former apprentice in the boy to remind Obi-Wan of the better times he'd had with both Qui-Gon and Anakin. Ben had been his connection to Anakin, a link that Obi-Wan had yet to dare travel.

"You must complete the training," Yoda said after an interminable pause.

Those oceanic eyes became lidded. "There is no purpose to it Master Yoda. I have all I'll ever need." He opened his eyes and gazed at Obi-Wan. "And if we can bring Anakin back, then the galaxy will have the slim chance of surviving the Yuuzhan Vong infiltration."

"Reason there always are, make matters worse you could untrained," Yoda continued to argue.

Obi-Wan shook his head, unable to accept this fate for one so young. "There must be a way to heal you of this ailment."

"There isn't, I tried the only cure I knew of but it did not work. My mother was dying of a similar disease when she carried me. It was only the Force that kept her alive long enough to carry me to term. By the time to birth me came, she was so close to death that my father often wondered why the Force didn't take us then. But the disease hadn't reached me yet. As a last ditch effort, my father tried to fight the spread of the infection, as I was born we healed her, my father and I."

"You tried a similar method on yourself?" Obi-Wan ventured. Finally the layers of security Ben had wrapped around himself were beginning to peel.

"I did as my father had described," Ben assured, then shook his head dispelling whatever thoughts clouded his mind. He cocked his sly grin. "Obviously it didn't work." Leaning back against his chair, Ben eyed them both. "I'll make a deal. I'll continue my training if you don't tell Anakin my current predicament."

"Anakin is incredibly powerful, he'll be able to sense it," Obi-Wan cautioned.

Ben shook his head with finality. "Not if I don't want him to. Hiding myself has become like breathing.."

"Yoda sensed it," Obi-Wan said, pursuing the matter. Perhaps if Anakin knew the consequences of his choices he'd be disinclined to continue his dark path.

"My father is an infant, I have to take his place as Anakin's link to the good side. If he knows I'm dying the future will seem helpless," Ben countered. He then leveled a steely gaze on Yoda. "That's the deal. Take it or leave it."

"Bargain, I do not. Accept your conditions I will," Yoda said gravely. "Your training we'll begin soon."

A quick rejection flitted on Obi-Wan's tongue, waiting to be released. There was a part of him that wanted to try again, to apprentice someone who didn't have a terrible burden of prophecy set upon his shoulders. But he knew that he still had Anakin to deal with, his fallen friend. He needed to focus his efforts on saving Anakin, not on indulging his need to be redeemed through Anakin's future grandson.

"I need to see Anakin," he murmured, mainly to himself but loud enough for Yoda and Ben.

"That's a priority. The faster we bring Anakin back and rid him of the seeds of Darth Vader, the quicker we can go after Palpatine," Ben agreed. "But killing the Sith alone will not be enough."

A nostalgic smile tugged at the corners of Obi-Wan's mouth. Watching Ben take over was very much like watching Qui-Gon Jinn defy the Council. Only this time, Obi-Wan saw the reasons for Ben's radical changes. Some of it rocked him to the core, ramming against the very code he had lived by. He wondered what Yoda's response to this would be.

"A long standing tradition you hope to change. Objections expect you should," Yoda warned Ben after the young Jedi delineated his plan.

Ben snorted and rolled his eyes with a dramatic flare. "Because your interpretation of the Code has served so well. You've isolated yourselves from the galaxy. People fear what they do not understand, clearly you should have seen that if presented with the opportunity many citizens would not care what happened of the Jedi."

"Unavoidable this was," Yoda said. "Protected from the threat of the Dark Side we needed to be." Humorlessly, Ben cocked an eyebrow at Yoda. The wizened Jedi Master sigh. "Agree with you I do. Expand the Jedi need."

"I suggest we find a safe house, a place the Jedi would go to if endangered. A place Anakin hopefully hasn't alerted Palpatine too," Ben said, lacing his hands in front of him. "Once we start gathering the Jedi, I'll have to teach them to void themselves from the Force. We don't want to alert Palpatine of our location before we're ready to face him."

"And if we can't bring Anakin back?" Obi-Wan asked, his heart sinking at the very possibility that he would be forced to face his fallen apprentice yet again.

The boy shrugged. "Then I'll have to do what my father could not."

"What was that?"

"Kill the man responsible for giving him life."


	6. Chapter 6

Anakin was surprised when his old Master walked into the anteroom of his little prison cell, tired

and hesitant. Quiet stilled over the prison cell, causing even the hum of the energy field surrounding Anakin to fade away. A palpable essence, the result of everything they had done and said in their lifetime together, stood between them, aiding in the chasm that had cracked under their feet. For a long while they gazed at each other; Obi-Wan's face masked in a film of calm resolve, while Anakin could feel his jaw work tightly.

He wished Ben had come in. The younger man could snap his nerves but there was not the

emotional weight that sagged Anakin's shoulders now.

He knew what had prompted Obi-Wan's arrival. Bail's ship had jumped into hyperspace not too

long ago and it only made sense that the Jedi would try to bring 'their' Chosen One back to his

senses.

"This won't hold me forever," he stated, unable to stand the breach. He should either be fighting on Obi-Wan's side or against him, he could not live in this stalemate. "My Master will come for me."

A startled jerk was Obi-Wan's only response at the honorific that had once only been for him.

"Possibly."

"We have a connection. He'll find me and the Jedi will tremble," Anakin probed, remind his

iformer/i Master that they were no longer bound.. He had not been able to feel Palpatine's dark presence for some time. Not since he'd felt a surge of it surrounding his supposed grandson, but he knew it must be there.

"Ben has taken care of that," Obi-Wan explained. Silence permeated the space around them, the

chasm separating them. "Is Palpatine really any better then I?" came his old Master's sorrowful

question.

"We're moving," he stated, ignoring the pain in Obi-Wan's voice and the words that questioned him to admit a truth he could not yet comprehend.

"We are," Obi-Wan nodded, allowing the dodge, his eyes roving over the spartan furnishments in

Anakin's cell. "Are you comfortable?"

Snorting, Anakin folded his arms in front of him. "So concerned for my welfare. Where was that concern when our lightsabers were locked?" His plan to fake his redemption had seemed to fall through the cracks of they abyss opened up between he and the man who raised him.

"You choose that path," Obi-Wan said after a struggled breath. "It wasn't what I wanted."

"Yet it was you who came to me," Anakin reminded sharply, his ice-chipped eyes boring into Obi-Wan's azure pair.

His old mentor did not flinch, he never did. "I had to try to bring you back."

"But there is no try, Master. There's only do. What did you do? You attacked me. Not the best

way to bring someone to the light, I'd wager," Anakin hissed coming as close as he could without

burning his skin on the energy shield. A sly smile curled his boyish features. "You hate me now, don't you?" That caused Obi-Wan to wince, his penetrating gaze wavering from Anakin's. "Must be disturbing with all that Jedi goodness inside of you. That you hate the boy you made."

A struggle warred over the bearded features, a struggle another might have missed. But not Anakin. He knew his Master's weaknesses, could see the hidden emotions boiling inside of him. The struggle ceased and Obi-Wan's gaze was once again the facade of a Jedi. "I don't hate you, Anakin. I hate what you've become, but I can't hate you."

"Careful, Obi-Wan. It is unwise to hide from your true feelings," Anakin said snidely, a nagging

sensation building at the base of his stomach.

"Which isn't to say that I'm not blazing angry with you," Obi-Wan said in reply, his tone going cold with the strength of his emotion. "You turned your saber on me, you have killed people that I held as family and destroyed what was good and pure inside of yourself."

"And you remain innocent in this, I suppose?" Anakin growled.

Obi-Wan blinked at the question, the shook his head. "No, I'm not blameless. I admit I made

mistakes with you, Anakin. Perhaps I was too hard, too soft at times, but I did my best." He

swallowed, pain thundering on his features before blowing away like a summer storm. "If I caused you pain, know that it was done in the belief that it was for your own good. But this..." and his hands waved to the cell Anakin was imprisoned in. "This, I won't take blame for. You know what is right. You made a choice and you will be held accountable for it."

"You planning on killing me, my old Master?" Anakin asked, keeping the mocking tone to his voice. Fear, always fear, it swam through his veins, pumped as blood. It was his life force, his constant companion. Fear was all he knew. He had to become fear to dominate it. "I won't go easily."

"Your death would do little good for the galaxy, Anakin," Obi-Wan said quietly, his voice strained with repressed emotion. "But there are worse things then death. Something that you still have yet to learn."

"The galaxy must always come first," Anakin quipped wryly. "For the great noble Jedi."

A sadness, deeper then anything Anakin had ever seen on his former Master, lined Obi-Wan's face. "I wish I could bring you peace."

Anakin closed his eyes, denying the rise of the weakness inside himself. He had loved Obi-Wan;

as father, brother, and mentor. It was so easy to fall back into that pattern of listening to this man, of seeking his approval. He could not allow the return of that love to make him vulnerable. "You speak of an impossible absolution."

"I don't speak of absolution. You cannot erase what you have done, Anakin. You cannot erase the past. I speak of forgiveness. I would have forgiven you anything, I would have given you anything. Except the darkside." Obi-Wan smiled, a strange twinkle lighting his otherwise abysmal eyes. "That was then. I've changed. Even the Jedi must change. Now, even knowing what you've become, I can only offer you forgiveness. Redemption, is something you'll have to find on your own."

He walked out then, as quickly as he'd come in, leaving Anakin with his own thoughts. Were Obi-Wan's words more tricks? He'd once trusted in every word Obi-Wan had uttered. Of course, it had not meant that he had adhered to it, but he had always believed those words had contained some measure of truth. His doubt to their importance in his life, had always been the dividing line between Jedi adages and himself. What need did a former slave have for forgiveness, for pushing aside his anger at injustice?

iOf course he would offer me words of hope. He could not afford to tell me the truth. That he'd rather see the Sith Lord dead/i Anakin told himself, now pacing his tiny cell. iHe never

understood me. He wasn't there when the life wafted out of my mother, he didn't see her murderers going on about their lives as though they had little to do with her demise. It's his fault that I slaughtered them, his fault that I've become this heartless Sith./i

'This, I won't take blame for. You know what is right. You made a choice and you will be held

accountable for it.' Obi-Wan had said.

Anakin shivered, falling onto his bunk and bringing the covers around him. iSpace is cold/i

Padme had once told him as a child. He thought he'd become immune to the cold, until it was a part of him. Isn't that what it meant to be a Sith, immune to the weakness of pain. Of its own accord, his mechanical hand rose to his face. He flexed the fingers of the mechanized hand, it could take a number of hits, could be shot at, and the pain was only minimal. He needed to be like the droids he'd once cobbled together in the darkness of his Temple quarters. He needed to be cold.

hr

"Distracted you are," Yoda said at his sided, poking Ben's calf with his gimmer sick.

Ben shrugged glancing down at the aged Master that would have, will have, taught his father. "Obi-Wan's talking with Anakin," he explained looking out the corridor window to where Anakin's cell was. Stretching out, he could feel the tempestuous emotions brewing in that tiny cell. He feared that both souls would be blown away in the strength of unseen winds.

He had come back in time to instigate the change in his grandfather and the Jedi, but now could find little footing in his path ahead. It was these times, with his father's sense so close yet irrefutably changed, that he wished for the guiding had of Luke Skywalker, the Jedi Master. Or perhaps the sharp wit of his mother. He missed them all at that moment, his Aunt Leia and Uncle Han; Jaina, Jag, and their little baby; Jacen and Danni, Tahiri. He had never known Anakin Solo.

All of that could change, though he doubted he would be a part of their lives, he could watch on from the Force, waiting for his father and mother to mature, watching while they struggled, perhaps even falling in love yet again. Aunt Leia and Uncle Han arguing about something completely intangible to everyone around them; their children, his cousins, would get a chance at life. The Yuuzhan Vong would come regardless of what he did, but perhaps his sacrifice would bring a different life to those who'd come before him.

"Can you see them Master Yoda? In the future? Can you see what will be?" Ben asked,

remembering his father's stories of his short but intense training period. Perhaps Master Yoda could see what Ben hoped for in his heart.

"Know you do unsettled the future is," Master Yoda answered after a brief moment of reflection.

"No more can you do today, young one."

Ben nodded, feeling his shoulders slump. He closed his eyes, focusing on keeping the poison at bay. Sometimes he felt so cold inside, the Vong venom stealing all warmth from him. Not even the Force could rekindle the banked flame that once burned in him.

"Rest you need, long have you traveled," Yoda said gravely.

"I fear to lay myself down," Ben admitted, his instincts forcing him to tell Master Yoda the truth.

Heavy green eyes watched him. "Fear what do you?"

"The dark," he whispered. "To close my eyes and be forever blind to what will be. I fear to die and leave unresolved that which the Force set me to do." He shook his head, wanting to feel the fire inside of him once again. Instead of the maw of emptiness in his belly. "I'm not my father. You don't know him, but you will. He was, will be, strong. He'll face whatever will come at him and he will not falter. He believed in goodness and light, he drew it out of people, showed their light hidden under shadow."

"Strong your connection to him was," Yoda ventured. "Empty his absence has left you."

"I was the last," Ben said forlornly. He straightened his shoulders, forcing himself to show some

measure of self-decorum. "I am the last. The last of what was but will not be again."

Hobbling off, Master Yoda said, "Come. Come, hold off the darkness I will. Sleep for a time, until your training we begin."

Sighing, Ben knew better then to argue with the Jedi Master. He followed Yoda into once of the

cabins. Shrugging out of his vest, he tugged at his boots before stretching out on the bunk. A three-clawed hand touched his forehead as she closed his eyes, attempting to settle his racing mind. He felt Master Yoda's essence bump against his own and he created the tiniest chink in his impenetrable shields to allow the diminutive Master in.

"Damaged you are. Heal young Skywalker, Heal."


	7. Chapter 7

It was as though a bug was twitching it's way around her skin, causing her nerves to flare with a

ticking itch. She couldn't stand still. She was sure that both Luke and Leia could feel her agitations, after all they were the children born to the Jedi's own vaunted Chosen One. After several hours of attempting to sooth them, she had left them in the care of Dorme, and had decided to walk off whatever was causing her skin to burn.

She wore a simple gown, a long fur-lined robe kept her warm in the space-cold ship, and she had

swept her hair in a simple braid that ran down the length of her back. A far cry from her usual

aggrandized wardrobe. So much about her had changed since the Republic had fallen and had taken the heart of her husband with it.

As she walked down the ship's expressionless corridors, she toyed briefly about asking Obi-Wan and Yoda to allow her to see Anakin. It would not be the first time she had made the plea nor would it be the first time for it to be turned down. Obi-Wan stressing how important it was that Anakin stabilize before he could see her. Then there was the very obvious fact that she was no longer pregnant, that the tiny children she and Anakin had created had been born and were now being blocked from him.

"Padme," Bail pulled her from her reverie. He stood in front of a transparasteel viewport that

looked in on the cargo hold of his starcruiser. "How are you feeling?"

"Stronger," she answered, sidling next to him and flickering her liquid brown-eyed gaze to the

viewport. Her mouth turned down in a frown as she saw Ben Jade working through acrobatic

maneuvers with Master Yoda.

She had watched the young Jedi Padawan closely, since he had arrived with Anakin and Obi-Wan. It had struck her as strange the way both Jedi Masters, Yoda and Obi-Wan, sought confidence with the young man. And there was no doubt in her mind that he had convinced them to leave Dagobah and depart to whatever secret location she was not privy to. Then there had been his strange desire to see her children. The way he had gazed at Luke with such longing in his eyes. What would a Jedi Padawan see in such a small child?

"He's quite impressive isn't he," Bail pointed out, as Ben levered himself into a one-arm hand-stand.

A heartbeat later, training probes encircled him. "Yes, very impressive," she murmured, eyeing the sill form that miraculously remained upright.

Bail must have heard the dubious tone to her voice. "You don't like him?"

"I don't trust him," Padme admitted, bunching her arms into the thickness of her robe.

If she had exclaimed she was the Sith itself, Bail's expression couldn't have been more surprised

then it was now. Bail revered the Jedi, held them to a light and greatness that she was sure any of

them would feel uncomfortable under. Yet, he quickly recovered from his surprise. No doubt, in

the wake of Anakin's betrayal, realizing how easy it was during these dark times, for even the light in one so young to be snuffed out.

"What makes you question him?" Bail asked.

She shook her head, feeling that itching crawl. "It's nothing I can pinpoint. He appears to have an unlikely sway over the Jedi," she answered, thinking of Palpatine and how terribly he had

manipulated her. "And hiss arrival is timed too coincidentally with Anakin's retrieval. He's incredibly strong, even I can see that."

"And yet?"

Suddenly Ben leapt out of his handstand, even as the probe droids simultaneously fired on him, his lightsaber igniting in his hand as he spun out of their direction, an azure ambient light. "And

yet...vulnerable," she thought out loud as she observed his strong strokes.

"Reminds me of Anakin at that age," Obi-Wan said, suddenly behind her. He too gazed upon the

young Jedi with a fond smile on his face. Was she right to believe that he was being manipulated

by a young man who reminded him too much of the boy he had lost? "The strength and the

vulnerability."

"You would know that better then I," she commented with feigned nonchalance. "After all he

entrusts you with all his little secrets," she snipped snidely.

Obi-Wan's eyes held such a baleful glare at that moment. "I would not speak of secrets if I were you m'lady." His meaning was so implicit that it made Padme take a step back from him. How easily he had cut her with such simple words.

Bail frowned at the both of them, caught between friendship. "It was truly good fortune that you

were able to rescue him, Obi-Wan."

An enigmatic smile graced the bearded face. "An act of the Force."

"I want to see Anakin," Padme burst in.

"We've already discussed this," Obi-Wan countered. "Not until both Yoda and I feel that is safe to you and the children. Once Anakin knows you are with us and the children have been born,

Palpatine could possibly know it. How long do you think it will take for him to come after them,

especially with Anakin in his condition? Do you really want to put them in that sort of danger?"

She returned his pointed gaze with a fiery one of her own. "And how do you know we can trust this Jade? How do you know, he hasn't already sold out my twins? You? And Anakin?"

"I know," Obi-Wan affirmed simply. "Perhaps if you could learn to trust me, this wouldn't be an

issue."

"As you always trusted me," she shot back, heatedly.

"It would seem, I had merit in my distrust, m'lady," he replied, his tone matching hers. "It was not only Anakin who betrayed me."

She gasped, tears springing to her eyes. Obi-Wan had been a friend to her during the long years of the Clone Wars. From Anakin, she'd learned that he had covered for the two of them, somewhat unknowingly, in the last three years. In his own way, Obi-Wan had loved them both. How hard it must be for him now, with her recriminations and Anakin's blatant rebellion. Yet she could not help her distrust of the situation.

Palpatine had been charming, a father figure to help her alone with rough courses of diplomacy. He had sprung the seeds of the Dark Side in Anakin, cultivated it until her husband was nearly

unrecognizable, and had driven the galaxy from a place of peace and justice, into a universe of

tyranny. It would not be difficult to turn a young boy into the seeds of their destruction.

"I..." she breathed. "Obi-Wan.. I.."

She was cut off by the sound of a whirring door. Ben and Yoda walked out into the corridor, Ben

pulling his tunic over his bare chest. For a brief moment she caught a tatoo on his upper right arm. Circular, black and faded, it contained some sort of creature on it, unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

Ben's oceanic eyes looked between the three adults and narrowed in scrutiny. "What's wrong? Is it Luke? Leia? Has Anakin done something?"

Again, Padme could not ignore the nature of Ben's questions. He paid too much attention to her

small family. "No, Ben, just a small disagreement," Obi-Wan answered, avoiding Padme's

questioning eyes. He knew what lay beneath Ben Jade's facade, yet he would not answer her

questions about the boy.

Ben deflated with relief, his shoulders slumping longer then they should have. It was these moments that Padme felt an undeniable urge to wrap her arms around the boy, to protect him from whatever bowed his back. Silent manipulation came in all sorts of forms. Palpatine had played the caring grandfather. Did Ben play the vulnerable child?

"Eat. Go eat," Yoda urged the young Jedi. "No more will I teach you today."

"I think I'll join you, Ben," Obi-Wan said. "Bail, Master Yoda, m'lady."

"You must allow her to know the truth," Obi-Wan said, as he forked his rice.

Ben chewed and swallowed a mouthful. He grabbed his recycled water and let it rinse the residue in his mouth. The training session with Master Yoda had left him drained, yet for the first time in a long while, he felt the poison threading in his own blood retreat. He wasn't cured, but it was a step in holding off the pain.

"And how will I convince her of the truth, when Anakin still doubts it?" Ben pressed. "It's not like I can show her the future, what would have been. She dies in that version. My father never even knew her. And why stop at Padme. Why not tell Bail, the whole Jedi Order. They'll have me locked up with Anakin. I'm too young to go insane."

"Where do you get this flippancy?" Obi-Wan asked, shaking his head ruefully.

"My mother," Ben answered, and the jocular tone fled his voice. "She could flay the hide off a Hutt with her tongue. Not the prettiest mental picture. But she wasn't one for finery. She loved ships, though. As a wedding present my father built her a ship. Of course, the Vong eventually tore it apart. It seemed impossible my father had any duties as a Jedi, considering the starcuriser's they went through." Suddenly, Ben was aware of his memory trip. He gave Obi-Wan a chagrin look. "Sorry, I sometimes fear that I'll forget them entirely."

Obi-Wan looked down at his food, a sadness falling over him. "Anakin, once said something similar to me. He feared forgetting his mother."

"You spoke with him the other day," Ben ventured, watching the older man's features.

"I did," the Jedi Master said simply, a hundred meanings in those two short words.

Ben took another pull of water. "How did it go?"

Shrugging, the Jedi Master scratched his beard in delayed thought. "Better then the two of us trying to kill each other."

"I let him die," Ben said bluntly.

Questioningly, Obi-Wan cocked an eyebrow at him. "You let who die?"

"My father," Ben answered, pushing his rice from him. "I wasn't the most obedient son or

apprentice. I had my own thoughts and I voiced them often. My father was good to hear me out and weather my tantrums. But when the Yuuzhan Vong were so close upon us there was never a greater time I wanted to disobey. I even pulled my lightsaber on him." Ben snorted at Obi-Wan's wide-eyed expression. "Doesn't make much sense does it? But I wanted him to live and I thought I could force him to come with me."

"He told me I had to survive and he pulled the only thing that I could not ignore," Ben continued.

"The Force. He taught me to trust in it's will, to follow the goodness in it's guidance. He knew both paths, so did my mother, they knew the light from the dark and they instilled it in me. When I reached out for it, it knew. It told me I had to go one. I had to be the one to survive. So I got on our ship and I took off and I left my father to be slaughtered."

He saw the sympathy on Obi-Wan's face, the need to come up with something to sooth away the

pain. "It is always difficult to loose the one's who raise us."

"I didn't tell you that, to get you to feel sorry for me, Obi-Wan. I told you the truth, because there's a lesson in it. The very foundation of my father's Order. Love is the most powerful feeling in the galaxy, it can be he greatest strength and the most debilitating of weaknesses. But it can be tempered by the Force. I loved my father," Ben closed his eyes as pain welled up inside of him. "But my loyalty was to the Force. A loyalty my father's love instilled in me"

"The truth is Obi-Wan. Every feeling from love to hate to feigned indifference has it's dangers. We choose how we use them. We choose whether they become the things that bare us up or the banes that tear us down."

He older Jedi looked into his eyes. "Is this what your father had that I did not? Is this what aided

him in bringing Anakin back, where I failed?"

Ben shook his head. "I don't know. You and Master Yoda were both instrumental in my father's

training. Perhaps you've only missed the truest meaning of your lessons. And I hope in that you find the way to my grandfather. The galaxy depends on it."


	8. Chapter 8

_Darkness swirled around him. He could feel the grit of mining dust, could feel the collar that had kept him aboard the mining yacht, scratch irritably against his skin. Thankfully, it was deactivated for the moment due to Qui-Gon Jinn's great skill. In their hurried silence, Obi-Wan's heart rapt in his ears, until he was sure each and every vein would burst with the pressure. Xanatos, the Jedi Master's fallen apprentice, was going to destroy the entire planet of Bandomeer, covering up his illegal activities and killing thousands of beings in the process. _

_This was everything he'd thought a mission would be like, had even dreamt about as he lay in his bunk in the Temple. He could almost hear the buzz of his model starfighters circling over his head. But in so many ways, this was unlike anything he had ever imagined. In his dream he always came flying in at the last moment or blocked that crucial shot with his lightsaber. _

_Right then as he felt Qui-Gon's frantic thoughts bump against his own, he'd never been more helpless in his life. He wasn't a Jedi, all this training seemed inadequate. People were going to die. And he was only an inexperienced child. _

_His eyes flickered to Qui-Gon, who was doing his own estimation of the area, looking for any possible escape. But Obi-Wan knew, he'd been working the mining tunnels for days and how volatile an explosion an ignited lightsaber could do in a closed tunnel and enough stale gas. The other slaves on the mining yacht had not been hesitant in explaining the unlikelihood of their survival. _

_Obi-Wan turned back to the shut door, his skin brushing against the near razor edge of the slave collar. Inspiration dawned and he shuddered. Slowly, he reached into his tunic and pulled out the remote that would activate his collar. _

_It was then that the Jedi Master realized he was dreaming. The trial of his youth was long past over and this was only a flicker of synopsis causing him to relive a part of his life that had been both struggle and reward. Lucid now, Obi-Wan allowed the dream to play out. He remembered turning to Qui-Gon then and declaring his brave and incredibly naive plan to save the planet of Bandomeer._

_But as he turned this time, he found Anakin in Qui-Gon's place. It was not Anakin as he was now; jilted and given to anger and hatred. This was Anakin as he had been, on the cusp of becoming a Jedi as young Obi-Wan had been when Qui-Gon Jinn accepted him as his apprentice. He stood with his hands at his side, dressed in his customary brown and black Jedi garb, his hair shorn to the Padawan style, no longer long and wavy, his head considering Obi-Wan at a tilt._

"_Anakin," he breathed, a line forming between his brows as he squinted in the pale light. _

"_Why don't you open the door?" Anakin asked, the pace of his words, slow, milky, and deliberate. _

_Confused, Obi-Wan shook his head. "This isn't how it happened," he argued. "You weren't even born yet."_

"_Does it matter?" Now there was the lilting smile, the cocky grin. An image of Ben Skywalker flashed before the exit. "Time is running out."_

"_Xanatos is gone," the next denial tore out of Obi-Wan's voice. _

_Disappointed, Anakin said, "You're still missing the point."_

_Unaccustomed to his former apprentice speaking in riddles, Obi-Wan felt his irritation rise. "What exactly is the point, Anakin?"_

"_Are you going to use that?" the younger man asked, jerking his head at the remote still clutched in Obi-Wan's hand. "You must decide."_

_Was Anakin to be concentrated on killing him even in his dreams? "The circle needs to be complete," he exclaimed, pointing to the half-circle that had been Xanatos' trademark. _

_bWhen I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the Master/b a menacing voice, breathed in a rhythmic hiss. He saw the flash of a red lightsaber, a cloak fluttering lifeless to a sterile floor. _

"_It is nearly finished," the young Jedi pointed out, scratching his neck thoughtfully. _

"_Will you open it?" Obi-Wan asked. Back in his youth it had taken the power of both himself and Qui-Gon to complete the circle. _

_In answer Anakin walked to the blast doors and pressed his hand to the metal. Skin went through metal as the wind cut through the branches of trees. With a child-like smile, Anakin took his hand out and waved it towards Obi-Wan. _

"_It takes two," Obi-Wan admitted. _

_A blink and Anakin had vanished, leaving him alone in the mining tunnel. "No," he muttered and walked to the half circle emblazoned on metal. He put his hand on it and focused his will on the door. He would not lose Anakin again, especially not in the enigma of his own mind. _

_The two ends, the edges of the near complete circle began to slink towards one another. But just as those opposite ends were to meet, his own power gave out and he could not make complete the circle. "No! Dammit!" He didn't know what lay behind that door but he knew it was better then the darkness enveloping him. He had to believe in a better world. "Master, please," he begged for the first time of the dead. _

_Silence echoed his plea and he punched at the metal, the unyielding rock. He felt the darkness lick at his frustration, promising him easy power, enough to complete that circle. _

_A hand clamped on his shoulder. "You cannot fight the darkness like that." Ben Skywalker grabbed his hand. "I'm here to help." _

_Grasping the future Jedi's hand was like holding sand, but eventually he got them positioned over the near-circle. With the power of two, Obi-Wan caused the ends to meet and the door hissed. He stumbled back as the slabs of metal spurted apart. Behind lay Anakin, as he was now, restrained in his cell. _

"_Sometimes it is as simple as opening the door," his Masters' voice reverberated in his mind._

"You're joking," Ben gasped, as Obi-Wan finished laying out his plan.

Cocking an eyebrow, the older Jedi replied, "This from the boy who traveled back through time on the whims of Force-visions."

Grunting begrudgingly, Ben said, "I had no other choice. It was either travel through time or let the Jedi become extinct." Anger clouded Ben's next words. "You release Anakin and you put everyone on this ship in danger. We're talking about my father and my aunt. Innocence in this."

"I've trusted you, Ben. Against everything logical thought would tell me, I've trusted you. I understand that you fear for your family, but need I remind you that Anakin is a part of it," Obi-Wan chastised gently. "All I ask is you return a little of that trust to me."

"A little? I suppose you think an asteroid is just a little obstacle," Ben shot facetiously.

A sly smile turned the corners of Obi-Wan's mouth. "From a certain point of view."

Ben groaned. "Now I see where my father got it." He eyes the older Jedi with his oceanic orbs. "Alright. But either you or I are with him at all times. Agreed?"

"Agreed."


End file.
